The Good in Goodbye

After months of anticipation and weeks of preparation, this week The Hours of Life with Theatre 22 opened and closed at the Cornish Playhouse in Seattle Center. I was invited to be part of the production over 6 months ago and have been eagerly anticipating it since.

Opening a show can be a complex emotional experience for a designer. I personally take my work very seriously and can get rather attached to my shows. I’ve heard it said by artists in many fields that their works become their children. In this way, opening a show, for me, is similar to a parent dropping their child off at college. When I first get a script I spend a lot of time getting to know each character. I read and re-read their lines. Then I meet with the director and together we start to build what these characters will look like and how they will carry themselves. Soon the performers come into the scene and you watch as these ideas that were once only scribbles in the margins of a play become actualizations. By the time you get to opening all you can do is cross your fingers and hope everyone remembers what to wear when and how. Like the parent dropping their child off at college, you do the best with the time you have until the day comes when you all you can do is hope that your best is enough.

Perhaps it is because I looked forward to this particular project so intensely; maybe it is due to the truncated production process. Whatever the reason, I am now experiencing a little bit of what can best be described as empty nest. Alas, the next project is already knocking at the door. With what little time I have to dwell, I am grateful to have been part of the production, to have collaborated with friends old and new, and for the most sincerely appreciative cast and crew with whom I have ever worked.